What's Holding Back the Private Sector? Understanding the Business Experience through Enterprise Surveys

Before starting this position on September 1, 2022, Gill served as the World Bank’s Vice President for Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions, where he helped shape the Bank’s response to the extraordinary series of shocks that have hit developing economies since 2020. Between 2016 and 2021, he was a professor of public policy at Duke University and non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Global Economy and Development program.

Gill led the World Bank's influential 2009 World Development Report on economic geography. His work includes introducing the concept of the “middle-income trap” to describe how countries stagnate after reaching a certain level of income. He has published extensively on key policy issues facing developing countries—among other things, sovereign debt vulnerabilities, green growth and natural-resource wealth, labor markets, and poverty and inequality.

Gill has also taught at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Chicago.

Wendy Teleki is the Head of the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (We-Fi) Secretariat, which is housed in the World Bank and supports women entrepreneurs in over 60 developing countries around the world. We-Fi works with multilateral development banks and local institutions to increase women entrepreneurs access to finance, markets, skills and technology through investments, technical assistance and policy reforms.  It has allocated over $360 million and helped catalyze $3.6 billion in financing for women entrepreneurs since its creation in 2017.

Prior to joining We-Fi in 2019, Ms. Teleki worked at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. At the IFC, Ms. Teleki spearheaded efforts to help private and public institutions in emerging markets expand financing and support for small businesses and women entrepreneurs.

In 2022, Ms. Teleki was named one of Forbes’s “50 Over 50” women in finance for her leadership in advocating for women’s economic empowerment and entrepreneurship. She is the co-author of Rebalance: How Women Lead, Parent, Partner and Thrive and has written on SME finance, entrepreneurship, and gender equality.

Ms. Teleki holds an MA in International Economics from Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business.

Norman Loayza is Director of the Global Indicators Group at the World Bank. He currently supervises the flagship data and reports, Women, Business and the Law, Enterprise Surveys, Global and Subnational Business Ready, the successor to the discontinued Doing Business. 

Previously, he was a Lead Economist in the Development Research Group and managed the Asia hub of the Research Group, based in Malaysia. He was director of the World Development Report 2014, Risk and Opportunity: Managing Risk for Development. His research has dealt with various areas of economic and social development, including macroeconomic management, economic growth, microeconomic flexibility, private and public saving, financial depth and stability, natural disasters, and crime and violence. His advisory experience at the World Bank has also ranged across different topics in various regions and countries.

On external service from the World Bank, he was a Senior Economist at the Central Bank of Chile (1999-2000), where he advised on financial and monetary policy.

Norman has edited 10 books and published dozens of papers in professional journals and edited volumes. A Peruvian national, he holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University (1994).

Jorge Rodríguez Meza has been the Manager of the Enterprise Analysis Unit at the World Bank since 2012. He has been with the Unit since 2005 when he joined the organization. Over these years, he has worked on projects measuring the business environment and its impact on development in all regions of the world. Most of this data collection work has translated into an extensive list of research published in journals, reports, and policy notes on issues as varied as access to finance, corruption, job creation, productivity, firm dynamics and experimental data collection.

Prior to joining the World Bank, and after completing his doctorate degree, Jorge worked for five years as a Senior Researcher of the Rural Finance Program of The Ohio State University. During his tenure he combined his experience on data collection with research on poverty measurement, microfinance, and financial access by marginal sectors of society.

Jorge holds a PhD and an MA in Economics from The Ohio State University and a Master of Science in Economics from Queen Mary and Westfield College of the University of London. His areas of expertise are applied research on financial and private sector development, industrial organization, data collection, and survey implementation.

Melissa Baker is a leading figure in development research and evaluation in Africa. As CEO of the Ipsos Centre for Development Research and Evaluation in Sub-Saharan Africa and MENA, she leads a team focused on providing evidence to support progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals and Africa's Agenda 2063.

With a career spanning nearly four decades, Melissa has extensive experience in research, data analysis, and evaluation across various development sectors in Africa. Her expertise includes building diverse research teams, conducting major social research studies in over 40 African countries, and coordinating Enterprise Surveys for more than 20 years.  She has also worked extensively in private sector development, enterprise development, agriculture, and public health.

Melissa is passionate about promoting Africa-led research and evaluation.  She has established a grant-funded practical evaluation program in collaboration with local universities and facilitates numerous training and development workshops.

A social anthropologist by training, Melissa holds a BA in Social Anthropology and Hausa from the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University. While her background is in social anthropology, she has years of experience working with statistical and quantitative research methods.

A dual citizen of Kenya and the UK, Melissa has two children.

Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan is Neil Moskowitz Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Maryland, College Park, and a co-editor of American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics. She is on the advisory panel of the New York Federal Reserve, and the Bank of International Settlements. Her affiliations include NBER and CEPR. She has published over 200 research articles, many in top journals, including the American Economic Review and the Journal of Development Economics. She has contributed to eight books and numerous policy reports.

Şebnem’s extensive research spans from economic growth and development to international finance and monetary policy. She has received numerous awards, honors, and grants, including, most recently, on Firm Finance, Risk-Taking, and Growth from the National Science Foundation. She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University.

Aart Kraay is the Chief Economist for the Equitable Growth, Finance, and Institutions (EFI) Global Practice of the World Bank. He joined the World Bank in 1995 after earning a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University (1995), and a B.Sc. in economics from the University of Toronto (1990).

His research interests include macroeconomics in developing countries; international capital movements; growth, poverty and inequality; institutions and governance; and applied econometrics. His research on these topics has been published in scholarly journals such as the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Journal:  Macroeconomics, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Economic Journal, the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of International Economics, and the Journal of Economic Growth. He is a member of the editorial board of the World Bank Research Observer, former co-editor of the World Bank Economic Review, and an associate editor of the Journal of Development Economics.

He has held visiting positions at the International Monetary Fund and the Sloan School of Management at MIT, and has taught at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, and has held multiple positions within the World Bank.

Ufuk Akcigit is the Arnold C. Harberger Professor in Economics and the College at the University of Chicago, and a lead academic advisor for the World Development Report 2024. His affiliations include NBER and CEPR. He has published over 70 research articles, many in top journals including, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and American Economic Review, with many citations including from the media such as the World Street Journal, Forbes, and Bloomberg.

Ufuk’s extensive research spans the fields of Macroeconomics, and Economic Growth, covering the topics of firm dynamics, innovation, and entrepreneurship. He has received numerous awards and honors, including most recently the Global Economy Prize from Kiel Institute. He holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.